Connect Quilt Inspiration

I will never forget the experience I had while working on a service project that touched the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people. This quilt design was inspired by that experience, and I am so excited to finally share this quilt with you.

What was this experience? Well, let me tell you.

This all started back in December 2016 after having a quick exchange with my oldest’s kindergarten teacher. It was right before the winter break and I decided to make a last-minute Christmas gift for my son to give to her. I decided to make her a rice warmer. While gifting this to her she made a comment that she loved to sew as well. She loved to sew clothing for children in foster care. Between her and her sister, they had made hundreds (maybe thousands) of items. So inspiring. After that brief interaction with my son‘s kindergarten teacher, I was inspired to do a sewing service project. I started to ask around for ideas for something that I could do and ultimately decided to make rice warmers for the huntsman cancer institute that my sister-in-law had told me about. 

My sister-in-law informed me that the rice warmers were so comforting for her while she received her chemo treatments. They would place them over the ports or wherever on the body that needed comfort from the warmth of the rice warmers. 

I called up Huntsman to see if they needed rice warmers and they did. They even had a pattern on their website on how to make them. I started to make a few rice warmers and thought that it was such a fun simple thing to do that I put a shout out to my Instagram followers to see if they wanted to make one and mail it to me without the rice in it to save on shipping costs. I was anticipating maybe getting 30-50 rice warmers but boy was I wrong.

I received nearly 2000 in the end. People mailed rice warmers from all over the United States, Canada, Japan, and Singapore. I received rice donations and monetary donations to help buy the rice, because let me tell ya- it took a lot of rice to fill up those rice warmers. I enlisted help from family and a fellow sewing friend that lived near me to help fill and close up the bags, thanks Barbie from The Quilting Mill. It was so amazing. 

Okay, back to the quilt inspiration. In one of my packages of rice warmers, I received pink and yellow cancer awareness ribbon stickers. I put them aside while I continued to open the remaining packages I received that day. In the process of getting the packages opened and contents organized, I noticed the stickers got kind of shuffled and messed up but the way that they were laying on the table made me stop in my tracks. A few stickers were creating a figure 8 pattern in such a way that I stopped what I was doing to mess with the stickers to continue the pattern for a few rows. I quickly sketched out the pattern and continued to go about my way with the rice warmers. I thought it was like a ‘cancer awareness’ quilt or something like that. 

Well, that scratch piece of paper sat on my sewing cart for a long time and I always thought of it when the angelversary of my brother-in-law’s passed would come around every summer.

My brother-in-law passed away from cancer at a very young age right after my husband and I got married. (Cancer sucks) Two and a half short years after his passing, my sister-in-law was diagnosed with cancer but I am happy to report she is in remission.

The original idea was to have the figure 8 ‘ribbon’ design, going from one row to the next, be the colored part of the pattern, But I ultimately went with the figure 8 ‘ribbons’ as the background.

I finally made the plunge and wrote up the pattern instructions, made the quilt, and was ready to release the pattern. But there was one little problem, I had never made a quilt pattern before, at least not a quilt pattern for purchase. I had made quilt tutorials before on an old blog I had (I’ll share more about that later), but never a pattern for purchase. What made me qualified to do it? I don’t know what I’m doing…. You know, all the imposter syndrome stuff leaking into my brain. 

Well, as luck may have it, that was when I found out the Amber from Alderwood Studio was going to be releasing a pattern writing course. It was an awesome course that helped me in so many ways and put me in touch with an amazing support group of fellow pattern writers. 

When I took this course I was going to school, working at a school during covid and raising my family. I admittedly put the pattern release off yet again. I told myself, “After this semester, I’ll dive back into the pattern and release it the first part of the year.”

Well, the semester ended, and do you think I got started on the release? Nope, guess what? Surprise, I was pregnant. My energy was gone and yet again the pattern was collecting dust on ever being released. In my third trimester, of all times, I got a burst of energy and decided enough was enough and that it was time to release it.

When choosing the colors for this quilt I wanted to use yellow and pink from the stickers I had that inspired this quilt and also autumn leaf colors. I had intended to release this in the fall after all. After making it I wanted to make another one but in blue ombré colors after seeing Meg from Monograms for Makers post a story on instagram of some blue fabrics she had pulled. I asked if she could pull in a few more blues to make the ombré look and she pulled it off wonderfully.

I had those fabrics for nearly a year before they were finally made up into the quilt. My son was especially excited because he said to me that I always make girly colored quilts and he said he wanted me to make one he would like. Guess what, he loves it and compliments on it all the time now. 

I am so excited to finally release this pattern and I hope that you enjoy this pattern that was inspired by some cancer awareness stickers placed so precariously on my table.

Both of the quilt samples that I made were made with fabrics I got from Meg at Monograms for Makers and both quilts were quilted by Barbie at The Quilting Mill. Both are amazing to work with.